And do you really need a GPS in a city you don't know?
Yes. Even more so than in the highway.
READ THE ROAD SIGNS!
What rod signs? The rare ones that specify the other street in an intersection or the small ones that are on buildings and specify the street I'm driving in.
CHECK A MAP BEFORE YOU LEAVE!
I cannot remember directions if there are more than 3 (any more and I will lose the order) or if I am in a totally unfamiliar city. So, it;s either using a GPS or having a paper map and marking my route on it, then stopping at each intersection and checking the map.
Somehow, you put that iPhone in a dash mount and people somehow thing it is now a legal "hands free" device.
Do you have to hold the phone in your hand while talking? If not, then it's hands-free. While you still need to press a button to answer the phone, same is true for headsets.
On the other hand, when I am using Google Maps on my phone to help someone (who doesn't know how to use a GPS system) navigate, I rotate the phone, so the direction we are going is "up" - that way I don't need to spend that extra half second translating between the directions on the map to directions I tell the driver. I do not really care in which cardinal direction we are going, I just care about where the next turn is and is it right or left.
The screen *is* a distraction. If I want to study the route, I'll do it when the car isn't moving.
Depends on the cities you drive in. I glance at the screen when I am unsure what the GPS means. Sometimes the device is silent but driving what seems straight to me is the wrong way - I need to keep right (the device would tell me to "keep left" if I actually needed to go straight in that place), this is probably some weirdness in the map.
Also, sometimes two roads are very close to each other, so when the device tells me to "turn right" I need to glance at the screen so see whether should I turn right now or go 15m and then turn right.
I use my UMPC for GPS. It has a bigger screen than my phone.
I was replying to the post that assumed "what if piracy did not exist and everyone bought stuff they pirate now" The guy who does not have the money for music would not buy it, breaking that assumption. However, the situation "did not have $40k in the first place" is quite likely, which means that the RIAA (and similar organizations) is pulling numbers out of its ass. "If nobody pirated the economy would be better" assumes that people have thousands, if not millions (that they "saved" by pirating) just lying around. Spending the "saved" money would mean that the money is already in the economy, so it would not improve if the person bought music instead of whatever else he bought now.
I mean a 160GB MP3 player can hold about 40k songs, so that's $40k if you buy them on itunes. So, the guy with a mp3 player full of pirated music: 1. Has spare $40k in his drawer (or safe), 2. Has spare $40k in a bank account, 3. Bought something else with those $40k. (or the money was divided between the three options). So, if it's #1 then great - more money in the economy. If he takes te $40k from his bank account, then it's a loss for the bank (not a big one though). If the guy decides to fill his mp3 player with legal music instead of buying something else then it's a loss for the whatever industry that has his money now (when he decided to pirate the music and buy something else instead).
So, do not mention it. During install (or when the user tries to play a h264 video but there is no codec) display a message telling the user to download a h264 codec. The user will google it or ask a friend and will find out about ffdshow.
That's right, Windows XP does not have a h264 decoder, so all the anime fansubs I have been watching I had to imagine the video while reading the file in a hex editor. Oh wait, I downloaded ffdshow, installed it and magically my computer started playing h264 files.
Not only that, but with CoreAVC and hardware acceleration, I can play 720p videos on my UMPC (also Windows XP), while flash can barely play 480p because it does not support the hardware.
OtherOS was used by the minority and as I recall, that minority was happy that OtherOS was removed. So now Sony should make the majority of PS3 owners happy by removing Bluray playback capability.
I use what works. I do not care about the ideology. I use Firefox because it is a good browser and supports the addons I like. I do not care about the openness of the source. I use Windows because it is a good OS and runs the software that I like (including games). I also use Linux because it is good OS for a server that does not need to run any Windows-only software.
I agree that modern versions of Linux run better on older hardware (assuming you can manage to get the GUI to work on the old video card) than modern versions of Windows, but the solution to that is to use an older version of Windows.
I have a Viliv N5 UMPC. It has Intel GMA500 IGP that supports hardware decoding of h.264 and with CoreAVC I can watch a 720p video file with no problems. WebM would be decoded in software so 720p would not work. Maybe you know of a UMPC (with keyboard, max 4.8" screen) that is made now (not in 5 years) that has x86 CPU (I want it to run Windows-only software) and hardware decoding of WebM? Oh wait, even if there was a WebM codec that used hardware acceleration (CUDA or whatever) Firefox wouldn't use it because it has its own, "better" codec. How about a hardware DVD/Bluray player that can decode WebM so I can play the videos I downloaded from youtube or whatever without spending time transcoding?
So... your solution to fragmentation in browser codecs is to deliberately cause fragmentation in browser codecs?
The difference is that I can download a h.264 codec and install it on my system. I cannot make Firefox (current version) show videos that are encoded in h.264 even though I have the codec in my system, so I can download the file and watch it using mpc-hc.
CCCP (ffdshow) is free, anybody can download it. Ffdsow also works on Linux.
It's the same as it is now. You install the browser, then Flash, then Java RE, then some addons for the browser (adblock etc). Why it becomes so bad to add one step and go download the codecs?
Actually, I would like that Firefox used system codecs even for the "free" WebM and Theora. That way, if somebody released a WebM codec that used hardware acceleration, I coudl install it and Firefox would use that instead of still decoding videos in software. Also, Flash has its own h.264 codec and I dislike it. That codec does not support DXVA on Intel GMA500 IGP (some old version supports it, but the latest version does not), I would really like if Flash also used the system codec (CoreAVC) since then it would use DXVA and I could watch higher resolution videos on my UMPC.
A very long time ago software had internal drivers for hardware (video etc), but now the OS handles the drivers and in my opinion it is better. The same should be with codecs. After all, Firefox does not talk to the video card directly, so it should just pass the video to the OS and tell it to decode and show it.
Yeh google should remove all support for h264 in android.
Yes, Google should do that. I hear people really like when they buy a device and then the manufacturer removes some features from it. Possible features, without which the user would not have bought the device.
And Sony should remove Bluray playback functionality from PS3, so people would need to buy another player.
Yes, and when the chips are made, I'll buy one and solder it on my UMPC. Oh, wait, it won't probably work like that. I will have to buy a new UMPC (hopefully they will still be made by the time the chips are common) just to be able to watch videos and support a "free" codec. But then I paid whole $0 for ffdshow, I don't want the money to go to waste, so I might still use h.264, after all, the anime fansubbers and pirates still do.
Yes, XP can only support DivX, that's why when the anime fansubbers abandoned it others reencode their releases to DivX because the XP users cannot play h.264, so they still don't know how great HD looks, since that is usually h.264-only.
Or they download CCCP or a similar codec pack and have h.264 codecs.
As for phones - it is more likely that a phone will support h.264 decoding in hardware than WebM. WebM will probably be decoded in software greatly reducing the battery life (assuming the CPU is fast enough to decode the video in the first place).
Ffdshow is also available for Linux and supports, among others, h.264.
Yes, they are so burdened right no too. Some users do not have Flash installed, some do not have Java Runtime, some do not have Silverlight. Some browsers may not even support Javascript. the developers have to take all this into account and provide functionality even if you don't have Flash, Java and Silverlight.
Oh, wait, they just tell the user to go donwnload the required plugin.
H.264 is supposed to RAND, that doesn't make it free. Per copy fees to be paid to a patent holder violates the GPL, if you need to work with GPL code then it's just plain illegal.
That's why you use system codecs instead of putting the codecs (that probably don't even support DXVA, OpenCL or CUDA for hardware acceleration) in the browser.
"Little better than MPEG2" is a pretty high standard, what format do you think DVDs use? They were around before MPEG4 was standardised. WebM is not the best format but that is not the same thing as being bad.
And h.264 can put a 720p resolution movie in a DVD5.
First would be Flash player which includes h.264 support for videos. Second is iTunes/QuickTime which provides its own h.264 decoder for free. Third is to install VLC.
Fourth: use ffdshow. Then you'll be able to use your favorite media player that supports DirectShow to play back the video.
You can still use WebM, but it will only be supported on some browsers. Like it is now. Also, not all countries recognize software patents, so h.264 is free to use in them. Also, the vast majority of hardware (camcorders, phones etc) supports h.264 but not WebM, so if you want to put a video that you recorded on your web site, you have to transcode it to WebM (and have a h.264 decioder). Even DVB-T in my country uses h.264.
You want to break that compatibility (and make it impossible for me to watch online videos on my UMPC that has a slow CPU and GMA500 only supports h.264), make people buy new devices to just support a codec that only matters to the minority. Can you find a clamshell UMPC (max 4.8" screen) that has a x86 CPU and either has hardware WebM support or a CPU that is fast enough to do it in software?
But at Nyquist, only one shape of waveform can be represented. Depending on the design of the DAC, it could be a square wave, triangle wave, or sine wave. But only one of those.
The spectrum of a 22kHz sine wave is one peak at 22kHz. The spectrum of a 22kHz square wave is peaks at 22kHz, 66kHz, 110kHz, 154kHz, 198kHz and so on.
So, if your sampling rate is 44.1kHz, you will only capture the 22kHz part and will get a sine wave.
Which is why uncapped connections are great! In theory, with my 300mbps connection I could fill (or back up) a 1TB drive in under 8 hours. Though as the connection usually only reaches something like 150mbps in practice, it would take 16 hours. Even during congestion days (weekends, national holidays) I could fill that drive in under 24 hours, assuming the servers or the swarm was fast enough.
It is quite simple. The PC now has a lot of software installed. Some I use frequently, some maybe once a month some maybe even less frequently. Also, there are various settings made that make the PC better (for me).
The first few weeks after reinstalling Windows is usually full of these situations: 1) Ok, so to do this, I'll just start that app... wait, where is it? Oh, right, I forgot to install it since I don't use it very often. OK, so where's the setup, more to the point how is it called? (after half an hour searching all the hard drives) OK, I'll google it. (after half an hour of googling) finally! 2) Why does my PC not work right (stability issues, too slow etc)? (after an hour of googling) Oh, right, I forgot to add this to the registry. Now it works better.
Because of that I only do a fresh install if I replace enough hardware that the previous system fails (or basically build a new PC).
Slashdot Mirror
And do you really need a GPS in a city you don't know?
Yes. Even more so than in the highway.
READ THE ROAD SIGNS!
What rod signs? The rare ones that specify the other street in an intersection or the small ones that are on buildings and specify the street I'm driving in.
CHECK A MAP BEFORE YOU LEAVE!
I cannot remember directions if there are more than 3 (any more and I will lose the order) or if I am in a totally unfamiliar city. So, it;s either using a GPS or having a paper map and marking my route on it, then stopping at each intersection and checking the map.
Somehow, you put that iPhone in a dash mount and people somehow thing it is now a legal "hands free" device.
Do you have to hold the phone in your hand while talking? If not, then it's hands-free. While you still need to press a button to answer the phone, same is true for headsets.
On the other hand, when I am using Google Maps on my phone to help someone (who doesn't know how to use a GPS system) navigate, I rotate the phone, so the direction we are going is "up" - that way I don't need to spend that extra half second translating between the directions on the map to directions I tell the driver. I do not really care in which cardinal direction we are going, I just care about where the next turn is and is it right or left.
The screen *is* a distraction. If I want to study the route, I'll do it when the car isn't moving.
Depends on the cities you drive in. I glance at the screen when I am unsure what the GPS means. Sometimes the device is silent but driving what seems straight to me is the wrong way - I need to keep right (the device would tell me to "keep left" if I actually needed to go straight in that place), this is probably some weirdness in the map.
Also, sometimes two roads are very close to each other, so when the device tells me to "turn right" I need to glance at the screen so see whether should I turn right now or go 15m and then turn right.
I use my UMPC for GPS. It has a bigger screen than my phone.
I was replying to the post that assumed "what if piracy did not exist and everyone bought stuff they pirate now" The guy who does not have the money for music would not buy it, breaking that assumption. However, the situation "did not have $40k in the first place" is quite likely, which means that the RIAA (and similar organizations) is pulling numbers out of its ass. "If nobody pirated the economy would be better" assumes that people have thousands, if not millions (that they "saved" by pirating) just lying around. Spending the "saved" money would mean that the money is already in the economy, so it would not improve if the person bought music instead of whatever else he bought now.
A better question is where the money comes from.
I mean a 160GB MP3 player can hold about 40k songs, so that's $40k if you buy them on itunes. So, the guy with a mp3 player full of pirated music:
1. Has spare $40k in his drawer (or safe),
2. Has spare $40k in a bank account,
3. Bought something else with those $40k.
(or the money was divided between the three options).
So, if it's #1 then great - more money in the economy. If he takes te $40k from his bank account, then it's a loss for the bank (not a big one though). If the guy decides to fill his mp3 player with legal music instead of buying something else then it's a loss for the whatever industry that has his money now (when he decided to pirate the music and buy something else instead).
So, do not mention it. During install (or when the user tries to play a h264 video but there is no codec) display a message telling the user to download a h264 codec. The user will google it or ask a friend and will find out about ffdshow.
On the other hand, you can design a device that does not fail as quickly, then you won't need to have as many replacements in stock.
That's right, Windows XP does not have a h264 decoder, so all the anime fansubs I have been watching I had to imagine the video while reading the file in a hex editor. Oh wait, I downloaded ffdshow, installed it and magically my computer started playing h264 files.
Not only that, but with CoreAVC and hardware acceleration, I can play 720p videos on my UMPC (also Windows XP), while flash can barely play 480p because it does not support the hardware.
Also, while XP does not have the h264 decoder by default, the user can download ffdshow and it will play h264. Really, how hard can it be?
OtherOS was used by the minority and as I recall, that minority was happy that OtherOS was removed. So now Sony should make the majority of PS3 owners happy by removing Bluray playback capability.
I do not have any Apple product.
I use what works. I do not care about the ideology. I use Firefox because it is a good browser and supports the addons I like. I do not care about the openness of the source. I use Windows because it is a good OS and runs the software that I like (including games). I also use Linux because it is good OS for a server that does not need to run any Windows-only software.
I agree that modern versions of Linux run better on older hardware (assuming you can manage to get the GUI to work on the old video card) than modern versions of Windows, but the solution to that is to use an older version of Windows.
I have a Viliv N5 UMPC. It has Intel GMA500 IGP that supports hardware decoding of h.264 and with CoreAVC I can watch a 720p video file with no problems. WebM would be decoded in software so 720p would not work.
Maybe you know of a UMPC (with keyboard, max 4.8" screen) that is made now (not in 5 years) that has x86 CPU (I want it to run Windows-only software) and hardware decoding of WebM? Oh wait, even if there was a WebM codec that used hardware acceleration (CUDA or whatever) Firefox wouldn't use it because it has its own, "better" codec.
How about a hardware DVD/Bluray player that can decode WebM so I can play the videos I downloaded from youtube or whatever without spending time transcoding?
So... your solution to fragmentation in browser codecs is to deliberately cause fragmentation in browser codecs?
The difference is that I can download a h.264 codec and install it on my system. I cannot make Firefox (current version) show videos that are encoded in h.264 even though I have the codec in my system, so I can download the file and watch it using mpc-hc.
CCCP (ffdshow) is free, anybody can download it. Ffdsow also works on Linux.
It's the same as it is now. You install the browser, then Flash, then Java RE, then some addons for the browser (adblock etc). Why it becomes so bad to add one step and go download the codecs?
Actually, I would like that Firefox used system codecs even for the "free" WebM and Theora. That way, if somebody released a WebM codec that used hardware acceleration, I coudl install it and Firefox would use that instead of still decoding videos in software.
Also, Flash has its own h.264 codec and I dislike it. That codec does not support DXVA on Intel GMA500 IGP (some old version supports it, but the latest version does not), I would really like if Flash also used the system codec (CoreAVC) since then it would use DXVA and I could watch higher resolution videos on my UMPC.
A very long time ago software had internal drivers for hardware (video etc), but now the OS handles the drivers and in my opinion it is better. The same should be with codecs. After all, Firefox does not talk to the video card directly, so it should just pass the video to the OS and tell it to decode and show it.
Yeh google should remove all support for h264 in android.
Yes, Google should do that. I hear people really like when they buy a device and then the manufacturer removes some features from it. Possible features, without which the user would not have bought the device.
And Sony should remove Bluray playback functionality from PS3, so people would need to buy another player.
Yes, and when the chips are made, I'll buy one and solder it on my UMPC. Oh, wait, it won't probably work like that. I will have to buy a new UMPC (hopefully they will still be made by the time the chips are common) just to be able to watch videos and support a "free" codec. But then I paid whole $0 for ffdshow, I don't want the money to go to waste, so I might still use h.264, after all, the anime fansubbers and pirates still do.
Yes, XP can only support DivX, that's why when the anime fansubbers abandoned it others reencode their releases to DivX because the XP users cannot play h.264, so they still don't know how great HD looks, since that is usually h.264-only.
Or they download CCCP or a similar codec pack and have h.264 codecs.
As for phones - it is more likely that a phone will support h.264 decoding in hardware than WebM. WebM will probably be decoded in software greatly reducing the battery life (assuming the CPU is fast enough to decode the video in the first place).
Ffdshow is also available for Linux and supports, among others, h.264.
Yes, they are so burdened right no too. Some users do not have Flash installed, some do not have Java Runtime, some do not have Silverlight. Some browsers may not even support Javascript. the developers have to take all this into account and provide functionality even if you don't have Flash, Java and Silverlight.
Oh, wait, they just tell the user to go donwnload the required plugin.
H.264 is supposed to RAND, that doesn't make it free. Per copy fees to be paid to a patent holder violates the GPL, if you need to work with GPL code then it's just plain illegal.
That's why you use system codecs instead of putting the codecs (that probably don't even support DXVA, OpenCL or CUDA for hardware acceleration) in the browser.
"Little better than MPEG2" is a pretty high standard, what format do you think DVDs use? They were around before MPEG4 was standardised. WebM is not the best format but that is not the same thing as being bad.
And h.264 can put a 720p resolution movie in a DVD5.
First would be Flash player which includes h.264 support for videos. Second is iTunes/QuickTime which provides its own h.264 decoder for free. Third is to install VLC.
Fourth: use ffdshow. Then you'll be able to use your favorite media player that supports DirectShow to play back the video.
You can still use WebM, but it will only be supported on some browsers. Like it is now. Also, not all countries recognize software patents, so h.264 is free to use in them.
Also, the vast majority of hardware (camcorders, phones etc) supports h.264 but not WebM, so if you want to put a video that you recorded on your web site, you have to transcode it to WebM (and have a h.264 decioder).
Even DVB-T in my country uses h.264.
You want to break that compatibility (and make it impossible for me to watch online videos on my UMPC that has a slow CPU and GMA500 only supports h.264), make people buy new devices to just support a codec that only matters to the minority. Can you find a clamshell UMPC (max 4.8" screen) that has a x86 CPU and either has hardware WebM support or a CPU that is fast enough to do it in software?
No, the video memory is separate on my system, but it still takes up the address space.
I am using Firefox with other programs, not just Firefox and nothing else.
But at Nyquist, only one shape of waveform can be represented. Depending on the design of the DAC, it could be a square wave, triangle wave, or sine wave. But only one of those.
The spectrum of a 22kHz sine wave is one peak at 22kHz.
The spectrum of a 22kHz square wave is peaks at 22kHz, 66kHz, 110kHz, 154kHz, 198kHz and so on.
So, if your sampling rate is 44.1kHz, you will only capture the 22kHz part and will get a sine wave.
The most compressed examples of the loudness war usually still sound pretty much the same when downsampled to 8 or even 7 bits.
However, thankfully, classical music is not affected by the loudness war.
Which is why uncapped connections are great!
In theory, with my 300mbps connection I could fill (or back up) a 1TB drive in under 8 hours. Though as the connection usually only reaches something like 150mbps in practice, it would take 16 hours. Even during congestion days (weekends, national holidays) I could fill that drive in under 24 hours, assuming the servers or the swarm was fast enough.
So? It is less than 4GB, isn't it?
By the way, Windows XP sees 3.25GB on my PC too.
It is quite simple. The PC now has a lot of software installed. Some I use frequently, some maybe once a month some maybe even less frequently. Also, there are various settings made that make the PC better (for me).
The first few weeks after reinstalling Windows is usually full of these situations:
1) Ok, so to do this, I'll just start that app... wait, where is it? Oh, right, I forgot to install it since I don't use it very often. OK, so where's the setup, more to the point how is it called? (after half an hour searching all the hard drives) OK, I'll google it. (after half an hour of googling) finally!
2) Why does my PC not work right (stability issues, too slow etc)? (after an hour of googling) Oh, right, I forgot to add this to the registry. Now it works better.
Because of that I only do a fresh install if I replace enough hardware that the previous system fails (or basically build a new PC).